


oh I swear we're gonna make it (you should come with me)

by moxiemorton



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Airport AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 12:50:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14934575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moxiemorton/pseuds/moxiemorton
Summary: Bemily airport au where Beca is a music producer who bumps into Emily, a soon-to-be signed artist. Some shenanigans and impromptu song-recording ensues.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "I love the idea of them meeting at an airport or on a flight. Or maybe they notice each other at security and it turns out they’re on the same flight or something?"
> 
> PORQUE NO LOS DOS
> 
> A/N: I friggen LOVE airports for some inexplicable reason so I may have projected that onto Beca and made her somewhat ooc but listen it's fine

Beca Mitchell is the fucking queen of public transportation.

Since she’s still just an low-level producer at a hotshot record-production studio, Beca is usually the one who’s sent out for out-of-state meetings and deals. The higher-ups have the stable titles, stable positions, stable salaries, and a guarantee that they won’t have to travel out of town. Not that she minds; ever since her parents divorced back in middle school and Beca commuted back and forth to her dad’s house every month, she’d been a confident and smooth traveller.

Buses? Trains? Trams? Subways? Taxis? Done. Easy peasy. She’d even hitchhiked before, which technically doesn’t even count as public transportation, but Theo was stupid as hell and didn’t fill up the gas tank once and they got stuck in the middle of the turnpike, so it counts for Beca.

But where she _really_ thrives is the airport.

Maybe it’s because of all the  _time_ that has to be spent — what with the super advanced booking and the security check and the boarding time and the standby time and then  _finally_ the departure — for a flight, but airports always seem like a big deal to people. Sure, it’s usually for a long-awaited trip or vacation so “big deal” might be an understatement, but that’s not what Beca sees when she people watches at the airport. They go in looking nervous or excited or scared, like they don’t exactly know what to expect and don’t know for sure whether or not they can fully conquer it without fucking up their journey somehow.

It makes Beca feel like a badass seasoned veteran traveller.

In a strictly business sense, which makes it that much cooler.

Not that she would ever tell anyone that she gets a high off the feeling of public transportation superiority. She knows that if she ever looks excited for a bus trip to Stamford or a four-hour train ride to D.C., Theo would never let her hear the end of it. He’d probably find ways to twist her desires into a coffee run every ten minutes.

“Heard you like public transportation,” Beca can practically hear him teasing. “Here, take a trip downtown and get me that Vietnamese coffee we got at that cafe one time.”

Even now, as he pulls his car jerkily into the drop-off line at JFK, Beca keeps her expression bordering somewhere between neutral and unhappy so Theo doesn’t pick up on her  _time to fuckin’ thrive_ vibes that springs up at the sight of suitcases and luggage carts.

“Now, be careful, all right?” Theo says with concern as Beca slips her laptop into her bag. He always worried over the longer flights and layovers, and because this trip to Los Angeles was super last-minute, the studio had only been able to get a hold of a flight with a five-hour layover in Chicago. “It’s going to be a while until you can settle down in L.A. so you’re probably gonna get tired, but you can’t —”

“I’ll be fine, dude,” she cuts in with a roll of her eyes. “I’ve done Seattle to Georgia when I was fifteen and they called me an ‘unaccompanied minor.’ I think I can handle a routine trip to L.A.”

“Just want you to get there safe, is all.”

Gathering up her bag, Beca sighs and holds up her hand in a scout’s honor. “Promise I won’t talk to any strangers.”

“Call me when you get there!” he calls just before she closes the door on him, and she shoots him a thumbs up over her shoulder to indicate that she’d heard.

 _Overprotective worrywart,_ Beca thinks to herself with a small smile. She knows he means the best, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t appreciate it. But only when she hears his car drive off does she let the tension in her shoulders go.  _All right, show time_.

Honestly though, the hype was more in the anticipation than the actual process. Beca is too experienced to actually fall into the time-consuming pitfalls of airport travel, so she’d already checked in ahead of time online and brought her designated carry-on size rolling suitcase so she wouldn’t have to check her luggage.

So she sails past the check-in counters and heads straight to security, already unzipping her jacket and fumbling with the clasp on her bag to take out her laptop.

The line for the security check is longer than Beca had expected on a Tuesday afternoon. She eyes the lanes warily as she hands her ticket and ID to the TSA officer, trying to judge the wait time for each line by the people in it.

The farthest lane has an old couple struggling to take off their shoes. Pass.

The second has a gaggle of teens, probably on their first trip without parental supervision, with a TSA officer repeatedly yelling directions at them. Double pass.

The next lane looks relatively normal, and Beca considers it while waiting for the gatekeeping TSA officer to hand her back her ID. She glances at the two remaining lanes — one with four, large, mean-looking men with tattoos and scars, and the other with a family of three children and a grandmother — and decides to stick with the third lane.

As soon as she gets into line, she knows she’d made a mistake; judging by her appearance, the girl in front of Beca is clearly unprepared for the security check. She still has on her jacket, a beanie, combat boots with tight laces, a Starbucks drink in hand, and a water bottle sticking out of her backpack.

Compared to Beca, who had practically stripped everything but her clothing off while waiting for her ID and ticket to be checked, this girl looks like a walking security nightmare.

_Damn it, Beca. You picked the worst lane after all._

But she has a feeling that’s not entirely true. Sure, being stuck behind an inexperienced flier isn’t a walk in the park, but it probably beats the frustration of being stuck behind old people or a rowdy family. And Beca could most certainly just clear her throat, get the girl’s attention, and warn her that  _hey, maybe it’s a good idea to take off all your gear and get rid of those drinks before the TSA yells at you_ —  she’d done that before for Theo, the idiot — but some twisted part of her wants to see how the girl reacts under pressure.

Okay, so she’s a public transportation guru but no one said she has to be a Good Samaritan. She has a right to be an ass when she wants to be.

“Ma’am? You have to take off that jacket,” a TSA officer calls to the girl, and Beca braces herself for the officer to point out the slew of other offenses.

“O-oh, okay.” The girl puts her backpack on the metal counter and shrugs out of her jacket.

“And the hat,” the officer continues, motioning to her head.

“Right,” the girl says with a nervous laugh, whipping it off and putting it in the bin with her jacket. Beca watches as she pulls at her hat hair, combing her fingers through long, dark, wavy locks of —

 _Okay, whoa. Relax, Beca_.

“No drinks either, ma’am.” The TSA officer continues, visibly annoyed, pointing to the coffee and then to the garbage can behind her. “And the water,” she adds.

“Oh, stars,” the girl mutters, racing to the garbage as Beca calmly slides her two bins, one with her jacket and another with her laptop and shoes, along the counter behind the girl’s backpack. Taking pity, she grabs an extra bin and puts the girl’s jacket and beanie in. “Oh, thank you so much.”

“Not a problem,” Beca replies, holding back a smile. The girl is actually kind of adorable, mostly in that I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing-but-I’m-trying-my-best-okay kind of way, but also in that cute, nervous puppy sort of way. A part of her hair is still rumpled from her aggressive beanie removal, and Beca has to hold herself back from straightening it out for her.

_Oh, my god. What the hell? What? What am I doing?_

“Empty your pockets, please,” the TSA officer now calls to the line as a whole, and the girl reaches frantically into her pockets to take out her wallet, her phone, a pack of gum, and some spare change. By now, she’s at the front of the line next to the metal detector, and she steps back with an uncertain  _is that everything?_ kind of expression as her bag and bin go down the belt.

Biting back a laugh, Beca hands her another bin. “Your shoes, dude.”

The girl lets out a soft curse, something that sounds an awful lot like, “Oh fudgesicles,” and drops immediately to the floor. Just when Beca’s about to pass her for the metal detector, she springs back up again, boots in hand. “Zippers,” she says proudly, pointing to the thin flap that Beca had missed before when judging her shoes. “Thought you’d had to wait for me to untie everything, didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t gonna wait,” Beca says bluntly, but smiles a little so she doesn’t look like a complete and utter asshole. Thankfully, the girl doesn’t take it personally. She thankfully passes through the metal detector without a hitch, and Beca follows closely behind.

“Thanks for that,” the girls says as Beca collects her things. She’s putting on her jacket and beanie and backpack and shoes all at once, and she looks like a half-dressed mess. But she still smiles gratefully at Beca, and all of a sudden her stomach bottoms out. Returning a tight smile, Beca just slides her laptop into her bag and collects her jacket.

“Don't mention it,” she says. And without another word, she’s returning her bins to the stack and heading down the hallway towards her gate.

 _No, no, no. God no. The airport? Really? The_ airport _? This is the_ last  _place to flirt and pick up strangers, Beca. What the hell are you doing? You don’t even know her. You don’t even know where she’s going. You’re never even going to see her again. After one smile? That’s all it takes for you? One smile?_

She knows she’s being unfair to herself; none of what happened was her fault, aside from maybe extending a helping hand. But her asshole-nature can only handle so much; she has enough humanity left to offer some degree of assistance to a naive, inexperienced, disoriented, adorkable, cute —

_Oh, my god. Okay. That’s it._

Beca strides angrily over to the cafe kiosk by her gate and orders a coffee even though she doesn’t exactly want one, as if punishing herself. Snatching up her drink and credit card, she plants herself down in the waiting area and takes out her laptop and soundproof headphones. She clicks open an unfinished mix she’d been working on during her free time and starts fidgeting around with it, drowning out all thoughts of work, Theo, L.A., and the girl at security.

Only when she sees people lining up at the gate in her peripheries does she tear her eyes away from the laptop. She hears a soft spoken, “Now boarding passengers in zone 1. Zone 1.”

Since her boarding pass indicates that she’s a zone 2 passenger, Beca shuts down her laptop and gathers up her belongings. She hops on the growing line, knowing that they’ll call for zone 2 passengers before she gets to the front of the line — not that it really matters to them, anyway — and chugs the rest of her lukewarm coffee so her hands will be free to lift her suitcase into the overhead bin.

Seasoned veteran.

Don’t mess with Beca Mitchell, pro traveller.

She speedwalks down the chilly and drafty bridge to the plane and shuffles on board, nodding briefly to the flight attendant that greets her. Her suitcase rolls silently down the carpeted aisle as she makes her way down towards her seat, eyes scanning boredly over the faces of the other passengers.

And she freezes over.

Because the girl at the security line is staring right back at her. They’re on the same friggen flight.

What’s even crazier is that she’s sitting right next to Beca’s seat. And she looks just as confused as Beca.

“Oh, hi?” she offers when they’re close enough.

“Hi,” Beca says tentatively. “I’m…you’re…” she points to the empty seat next to her. “That’s mine,” she says stupidly.  

“Are you following me?” the girl asks, and Beca is immediately defensive.

“Wh — no, dude. I was about to ask you the same thing.”

She can feel the annoyed glares from the passengers boarding behind her, so she quickly tosses her bag and jacket into the bin and takes her seat. Her heart is inexplicably thundering in her chest, and Beca clears her throat to dispel whatever reservations she’s feeling about this weird turn of events.

“Wow,” the girl says, voice full of bemused delight. “What a coincidence, huh?”

“Yeah,” Beca nods, agreeing with the understatement of the century, “a coincidence.”

It seems more like a cruel twist of fate, like some form of divine punishment on Beca for first being rude to this girl by not extending all of the help she needed, and then for briefly crushing on her afterwards because of  _one damn smile, come on, Mitchell!_

“I’m Emily, by the way,” the girl says, extending a hand. Beca tries not to look at her sunny smile, but it’s impossible to avoid when they’re literally a foot apart. She returns the handshake and tries to ignore how warm and soft Emily’s hand is.

“Beca.”

“Well, Beca,” she says, still smiling that perfect smile. “I just wanted to thank you again for helping me out at security. I’ve never really flown alone before, so I kinda forgot all the airport shenanigans.”

“Yeah, it’s no problem.” Beca shrugs. “I could’ve helped you out more. You looked like a TSA officer’s worst nightmare and I could’ve warned you that you had to take everything off before she did.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Emily says, waving her hand. “Best way to learn is through mistakes, right?”

Beca can’t help but to snort out a laugh at this girl’s upbeat attitude. “That’s one way to look at it.”

The speaker crackles to life and a stewardess announces that doors are about to close. And usually, this is the time Beca pulls out her headphones and blocks out the world and relaxes in her seat. But for some reason, she feels an antsy and nerve-wracking desire to keep talking to Emily.

“You, uh. Visiting family in Chicago?” she asks awkwardly.

Queen of public transportation.

Total newbie at small talk with fellow passengers.

“Oh, no.” Emily says, shaking her head. “I actually have a connecting flight from O’Hare. Like, there’s a five-hour layover time in between that’ll probably suck, but then I’m flying down to L.A.! It’s gonna be my first time there,” she gushes, but Beca just stares at her, flabbergasted.

“You’re  _kidding_.”

And Emily looks so innocently puzzled that it makes Beca want to reach over and squeeze her cheeks. “No? I mean, yeah, it’s kind of dumb, flying all the way north to Chicago and wait there for five hours only to fly down to L.A., but that was the only flight I could afford at the moment, so —”

“No, I mean,” Beca cuts in. She reaches into her pocket and draws out her print-out boarding passes. “I’m on the same exact trip. Five hour layover. Bound for L.A.”

Emily practically snatches the tickets out of Beca’s hand, her mouth falling open. “Oh-em-fricken-gee! What? That’s crazy!”

“What are the odds, huh?” Beca chuckles lightly, pretending like her heart isn’t practically clawing its way out of her chest.  _Fate? Is it fate? Is this some kind of weird fate thing? Is the universe trying to tell me something?_

“Wow, that’s awesome!” Emily exclaims, beaming. “You can totally help me through with the whole layover thing! I mean, I’m sure I can figure it out in five hours, but I don’t want to get lost or anything because I heard O’Hare is the biggest airport in America, and that’s  _not_ the greatest thing to hear when you’re a first-time flyer like me, let me tell you. And if it’s five whole hours, maybe I can even treat you to dinner or a coffee or whatever as a thank you, and maybe afterwards —”

Beca just watches and nods as Emily talks, rambling on and on about doing this and going through that and gesturing wildly for no foreseeable reason. And she should be annoyed that a stranger is squeezing herself into her designated travelling-alone time and making herself comfortable in Beca’s space, but every word that comes out of this girl’s mouth just invigorates her and makes her feel…excited about the five-hour layover.

“...as long as, uh. You don’t…mind, of course.” Emily finishes, looking expectantly at Beca. “Sorry, we just met and I’m acting like we’re old friends. You’re just, um.” She pauses, searching for the right word. “You’re like, a reassuring presence. You know? It seems like you know what you’re doing and it’s comforting.”

“Thanks,” Beca replies, feigning uncertainty but ruining it with a smile. “Sounds like I’m your new mom.”

“Oh, gross.  _Not_ that moms are gross, but that’s not how I want to look at it.” Emily nudges a playful elbow into Beca’s arm that sends a violent line of goosebumps down her back. “More like, travel buddies.”

There’s no reason for a pair of such elementary words to plant a smile on Beca’s face, but it certainly does. “Sure,” she finds herself saying. “Travel buddies.”

The excited smile and containable wiggle Emily gives her is enough to make her heart melt.  _Holy lord, Beca. Snap out of it_.

“You…uh.” Beca clears her throat to dispel the super embarrassing waver in her voice. “So what are you headed to L.A. for?”

“Oh, stars, I never fully answered your question, did I?” Emily giggles a little and Beca practically drowns in the bubbly cadence of her laugh. “I’m actually headed to a meeting with a recording studio! I write…well, okay, this is going to sound dumb, but I write songs. As a hobby, not for a living. Well,  _yet_ ,” she says with a wink.

Beca’s mouth goes dry. “Uh…recording studio? In L.A.?”

“Yeah! Like a legit one, too! I was supposed to meet my agent at  O’Hare but her flight got majorly delayed so she’s probably not going to make our connecting one…but it’s cool! Our meeting with the studio’s tomorrow afternoon, so it works out.”

“Uh, which,” Beca clears her throat again. “Wh-which studio?”

If Emily hears the stutter or the slightly panicked pitch, she doesn’t point it out. “Residual Heat? The one that released that weird Snoop Dogg Christmas album like, a year ago.”

Beca slowly lets out the breath she’d been holding, unsure of whether to feel disappointed or relieved that Emily isn’t about to show up at her studio tomorrow.  

“They’re not bad,” she says, nodding. “They got some solid albums and artists in their roster. Nothing huge, but reputable. But, uh, hey. If it doesn’t work out with that company…” She reaches into her wallet and pulls out a spare business card, feeling like a fucking badass. “You can see what  _we_ can do for you instead.”  

“Whoa! You’re a music producer? What! That’s amazing!” Emily holds the business card like it’s the Holy Grail and looks at Beca like she’s her own personal savior. “This is. Wow. Whoo! I’m getting a little nervous over here,” she says, fanning herself excitedly.

 _Right back atcha,_ Beca thinks, smiling at Emily’s reactions. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. Don’t reject Residual if you really like them. But just letting you know we’re a little closer to home.”

“This is…wow,” Emily says, and Beca silently agrees. “This is like, weird, right? To you? It’s not just me. Right?”

“It’s pretty weird,” she nods. “But hey, I’ll take it. After all the annoying mouthbreathers with B.O. I’ve sat next to on past flights, I’ll take a cute songwriter any day. Let’s forget I said that and just move on,” Beca says, not missing a beat. Her heart, on the other hand, has a friggen explosion and sends heat waves rushing to her cheeks. “Y-you have any songs I can listen to right now?”

“O-oh, yeah.” Emily’s also a little pink, and Beca mentally slaps herself for the slip. She rummages around in her pockets for her earbuds to avoid looking at Emily.

“Excuse me, ma’am? We’re just about ready for departure and we’re going to need all cell phones to be switched off or onto airplane mode.” A stewardess blooms out of nowhere and leans over Beca’s seat to whisper to Emily.

“Oh, right. Sorry!” Emily whispers back. “Sorry,” she says to Beca. “Maybe I can show you when we land?”

“Yeah, that works for me. We’ve got five hours to kill, so.”

Emily smirks and raises her eyebrows.  _What does that mean? What does that mean?!_  Beca’s mind goes into overdrive as Emily switches off her phone.  

“Oh, wait. That reminds me,” Beca says, taking out her phone, “I gotta text my supervisor.”

 **Beca:**   _Sorry._

**Beca:** _Broke my promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title song: Hotels (Tk) - Mr. Carter Davis
> 
> if you picked up on Up In The Air vibes you are 100% correct because I relate to George Clooney's character on a spiritual level 
> 
> listen I'm always taking prompts but it'll realistically take weeks for me to respond but: http://moxiemorton.tumblr.com/


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "if i could trouble you for an airport sequel it'd be hella lit but if not then thats okay just know i love it !!!!!"
> 
> BITCH ME TOO airports are my fave 
> 
> I hope that's obvious because I try not to do part 2s for these one-shots
> 
> also a significant portion of this fic was inspired by what happens in the long fic I'm writing, so there's probably going to be...repeat...themes...because I suck...

When the plane touches down on the runway of O’Hare, Emily can hardly contain her excitement. The last two and a half hours had been spent in a non-stop conversation with Beca — a super cool, super nice, super pretty, super talented music producer with Distressed Records — and they’d talked about everything from music to school to family to jobs and back to music until the announcement was made for landing preparations.

Talking to Beca is like talking to an old friend, even though they’d only met a few hours ago, and Emily never wants to stop. The five-hour layover and the four-hour flight they’re about to share is like some sort of divine blessing, and though she’d been nervous to tackle all that extra travel time alone, having Beca by her side is reassuring to say the least.

“All right, let’s hear that song,” Beca says as soon as the roar of the engine dies away. The plane is still coasting along the runway towards their gate, and people are just now switching their phones back on.

“Oh, y-yeah.” She fumbles with her phone and turns it on. Beca takes hers off of airplane mode and Emily hears a thousand  _ping!_ s from notifications.

“Ugh,” she groans. “Shut up, dude.”

“Your supervisor?”

“And various other annoyances from the studio.” Beca rolls her eyes with exasperation but shoots Emily a good-natured smile. It’s impossible for her not to return one.

Everything about Beca screams practicality. She’s dressed comfortably but professionally, with dark jeans, a loose shirt, a soft blazer, and low cut boots; unlike Emily and her leggings-hoodie combo, Beca is ready for both travel and work. Her bag is big enough to carry all of her stuff but small enough to fit the carry-on limitations. The way she talks is incredibly straightforward, bordering on blunt, but in an honest, no-frills way that Emily hopes is how all music producers speak.

And though she seemed pretty intimidating at first, the more Emily talks with Beca, the softer her expression gets, until she’s smiling at practically everything Emily says.

She’d always been a little awkward when it came to talking with strangers, but Beca makes it effortless and enjoyable.

Emily’s phone finally turns on and she flips through her e-mail to find the file that she’d sent her agent a while back. “Here,” she says, clicking open the file and handing her phone over to Beca. She already has earbuds out — because of course she’s ready for something like this — and she offers one side to Emily.

It’s pretty embarrassing, listening to her amateur recording of a half-baked song with a professional music producer, but Beca nods along to the tempo and smiles at the cheesy lyrics. “This song have a title?” she asks when the second chorus hits.

“Flashlight,” Emily shrugs. “I know, I know. Not really creative.”

“It’s to the point. That’s creativity in itself.” She chuckles and shakes her head. “I’ve heard some pretty terrible song and album titles. Simple is refreshing.”

And Emily beams because even though it’s a brief and somewhat off-handed compliment, it sounds like the world’s greatest praise coming from Beca. The song ends just as the plane parks next to the gate, and passengers all around them start getting up and grabbing their bags from the bins.

“You got some pipes,” Beca comments as she hands Emily back her phone. “That’s quite a range, too. You get lessons or something?”

“Nope. All self-taught. Lots of shower singing.”

“And the songwriting?”

“My eighth-grade English teacher was super into poetry and she got me hooked into writing.” Emily purses her lips, embarrassed. “The lyrics aren’t the best, I know, but that’s kinda what I want to work on with…well,  _a_ record company, if you will.”

Beca smirks as she squeezes herself into the packed aisle to open their bin. “Are they from the heart?”

“Y-yeah?”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

She hands Emily her backpack and jacket before reaching for her own suitcase. Suddenly she pauses, her bag half-in and half-out of the bin, and fixes Emily in a thousand-yard stare. “We have five hours,” she whispers, mostly to herself, and Emily can almost hear the gears turning in the tiny producer’s head. Then she lets out a long, long hum as she lowers her suitcase effortlessly from the overhead bin.

“Are you…okay?” Emily asks.

Beca nods slowly. “How do you feel about going on a scavenger hunt?”

“A…a…?”

“Scavenger hunt,” she repeats.

“At…O’Hare?”

“Yeah. We have five hours.”

Revitalized with an unknown energy and intent, Beca zooms out of the aircraft as soon as the doors open, Emily following her quickened pace with ease on her longer legs, confused about what’s happening but still excited for whatever adventure her travel buddy has in mind.

“Okay, wait.” Beca pauses just as they enter the concourse. “Let’s grab coffee first. That’s not part of the scavenger hunt, but you did mention something about treating me, so.”     

Elated that she’d remembered, Emily happily buys Beca a coffee and get a latte for herself to make up for the one she was forced to throw out on the JFK security line. They settle down at a table near the edge of the cafe, right next to the pathway where hundreds of travellers are milling around.

“So what exactly are we hunting for?” Emily asks, watching Beca as she scans the crowd intently. “Something old? Something new?”

Though her gaze remains on the crowd, a smile softens Beca’s eyes. “Mostly something borrowed. Definitely not something blue.” She snaps her attention back to Emily, and the younger girl fights to keep a neutral, if not politely puzzled, expression.  

It’s hard because Beca’s so pretty and  _cool_ and confident all at once. And she’s just plain old Emily.

“Ever record a song in a professional studio?”

“Wh-…?  No? I-I mean, I hope one day, yeah. But not yet.”

“Good.” Beca nods, taking out her laptop from a side pocket. “Because this would be a serious downgrade if you have.”

“A-are we recording a song?” Emily asks, nervous and excited. Beca bends over in her chair to lay her suitcase flat on the ground and unzip it with a flourish. She pulls out several cables, a clunky pair of expensive-looking headphones, and a small contraption that looks like a weird cross between a walkie-talkie and a microphone.

“If the scavenger hunt goes well, then maybe.”

“You never told me what we’re looking for.”

Beca glances at Emily and smiles, fiddling with the cables and equipment. “It’s not much. I’ll be able to find it myself.”

“But…then I can’t help,” she says, confused.

“Yeah, it’ll be like a surprise…whoa, hang on.” Her eyes snap onto something — or some _one_ — past Emily’s shoulder, and suddenly she’s gathering up everything in her arms and rising from her seat. “Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

And she’s off, clutching her laptop and the mic to her chest, headphones hanging around her neck.

Emily watches, astounded and amused, as Beca shuffles across the concourse with all of her gear before coming to a stop in front of a group of men with a luggage cart loaded with instruments. “Ohh,” Emily says softly to herself as Beca converses with the group, who at first seemed alarmed at the tiny gadget-clutching girl but are now smiling and nodding at whatever she’s telling them.

One of the men, a tall, lanky guy with a beanie similar to Emily’s, pulls out a case from the stack on the cart and motions for the rest of them to go on without him. He then follows Beca as she leads him towards an unused gate, still within Emily’s view but definitely too far for her to listen to their conversation.

She sips at her latte as she watches Beca sit down with the guy in an empty seating area, gesturing wildly with her hands and talking enthusiastically. The guy sets down his case and draws out a jet-black acoustic guitar, and smiles with a nod as Beca points excitedly to the bottom of the instrument. He reaches back down into his case and pulls out a cable, plugging one end into the guitar and the other into Beca’s weird microphone contraption.

Emily wishes she could go over and hear what they’re doing, but at the same time, she wants to trust Beca’s promise of a surprise. The guy begins playing something and Beca puts on her headphones, fiddling around with her laptop and the mic. She stops him occasionally and makes a circular motion with her hands, probably telling him to keep going or to keep looping, and eventually shoots him a thumbs up, pulling off her headphones. They talk a little bit more and Beca hands him something, and then she’s rushing back to Emily with a huge smile on her face.

“Okay,” she says, sounding breathless. “One down, two to go.”

She deliberately focuses on her laptop and avoids Emily’s curious look, biting down on a smile. “Really? You’re not going to show me what he played?”

“You’ll hear it eventually,” Beca says playfully. “Well, the next one’s pretty tricky, so I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it,” she admits, sipping idly at her coffee. “But it’s not totally necessary, so we’ll live.”

“What is it?” Emily tries, knowing by Beca’s teasing smile that she’s not about to get an answer.

“You’ll see. Maybe. I don’t know about this one.”

She leads them to the terminal’s lost and found, located in the back corner of the main check-in counters. There’s a tired-looking employee manning the desk, and he looks up blearily as they approach.

“Hi,” Beca starts uncertainly. “I lost a pair of headphones here about a month ago, did you guys happen to pick it up? They’re the Beats Studio3 Wireless headphones. White. Gold B’s on the sides. The cushioning on one side is a little ripped.”

The man at the desk rises heavily from his seat without a word and trudges towards the back room, where Emily can see shelves upon shelves of lost items.

“I didn’t lose those headphones,” Beca whispers as the employee rummages in the back. Emily stares at her in shock.

“What? You just made it up?”

“Not exactly. My supervisor Theo told me he lost his pair when he was here last month.” Beca crosses her fingers. “Here’s to hoping airport staff picked it up.”

It takes a good five minutes, but the guy returns with a pair of headphones that look exactly like the ones Beca had described. “These it?” he asks.

“Damn,” Beca says, voicing Emily’s surprise. “You guys are good. Thanks.”

They make their way back to the concourse, feeling like they’d just stolen something. “It’s that easy? They don’t need like…I dunno, ID or something?”

“Headphones aren’t microchipped,” Beca laughs. “There’s no way for them to tell. Besides, there’s no way these  _wouldn’t_ be mine if I could describe them with such detail.” She pulls out her phone and takes a picture of the Beats. “Owes me a drink, the bastard.”  

“Two down, one to go?” Emily asks.

“One to go,” Beca agrees, checking the time. “Last one might take a while to find, though. Wanna grab something to eat first?”

It’s too early for dinner but neither had eaten lunch, so they each buy an overpriced sandwich from a deli. The food court is jam-packed with no open tables, and the seating for nearby gates are too crowded for either of them to settle down comfortably. They end up sitting on the floor against the far wall of the concourse where foot traffic is lighter, munching on their sandwiches with their paper plates balanced in their laps.

“This is all so surreal,” Emily says after swallowing a huge bite. “I’m eating a $12 sub on the floor of O’Hare airport with a stranger while taking a break from playing a mystery scavenger hunt that could possibly result in recording an impromptu song.”

“Does sound a lot like a fever dream.”

“Stars, who’s gonna believe me?”

“You’ll have some proof,” Beca says reassuringly.

Emily chews slowly and mulls over her question. “Do you do this often?” she finally asks. “Like. Talk to random strangers. Stick with them through long layovers. Offer a record deal. Conduct a scavenger hunt.”

Beca’s smile grows with each activity Emily lists until she finally laughs at the last one. “Nope. None of the above. You’re the first.”

And Emily had suspected as much, but it still makes her giddy and overwhelmed to hear Beca confirm it.  _What if I end up signing with her company? What if we end up working together? Oh, boy. How_ cool  _would it be to collaborate with someone like Beca?_

“Finished?” Beca asks, and Emily swallows her last bite in response. “Cool. Ready for the last part?”

“I dunno, am I?”

“Don’t worry,” she says, leading the way. “It’ll be fun.”

And she trusts Beca.

They make their way towards the far end of the terminal, the crowd getting thinner and thinner as they go along. By the time Beca leads them down the second escalator, there’s practically no one around them. They eventually reach a wide hallway with nothing but long strips of moving walkways, humming softly into the echoing silence.

Beca stops and lays down her bag. “All right, here’s good.”

“Here?” Emily asks skeptically, looking around at the deserted space. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Totes.”

They settle down on the floor of a secluded corner, out of the way from the few people passing by but in plain sight so airport security doesn’t think they’re up to anything suspicious. Beca spreads her laptop, the weird mic thingy, her headphones, the extra headphones they’d taken from the lost and found, and a bunch of confusing wires out on the floor in front of them. Emily tries to help where she can, but she mostly leaves it to the professional.

“All righty,” Beca sighs, rubbing her hands together, “as much as I want to play around with the song you showed me, I don’t want to get in trouble with Residual Heat. If you sign with them.” She pauses and winks. “So we’re gonna settle for a cover.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. What song?”

Beca just smiles and hands Emily her supervisor’s lost headphones. “Just go with the flow.”

And for a second Emily thinks Beca just gave her a song title, but then she realizes that this girl is seriously going with the ‘surprise’ thing until the very end. “Is this some kind of test?” she asks, fidgeting with the headphones.

“A little,” Beca admits, plugging in cables and wires into her laptop, to the mic, and to the headphones. “Don’t worry dude, I’ll start us off. I know you can take the lead, but I want to hear if you can harmonize just as well. Also, if you don’t know this song, I’ll judge you pretty harshly.”

That doesn’t make Emily feel any better, but then Beca’s putting on her headphones and asking her if she’s ready, so all she can do is put on the other pair and shoot a thumbs up. Beca places the mic right in between them and clicks something on her laptop, and suddenly there’s the sound of a soft guitar intro and Emily  _absolutely_ knows this song. And she beams at Beca to let her know that she recognizes the song, receiving a smirk and a nod in return.

Emily stops smiling — and quite possibly  _breathing_ — as soon as Beca starts to sing.

 _From walking home and talking loads_ _  
_ _To seeing shows in evening clothes with you_

The microphone picks up both Beca’s voice and the subtle echo coming from the empty space, and Emily understands why she’d chosen the place. Everything is projected straight into the headphones, and Emily feels like she’s listening to her own personal concert. Holy crap. Holy  _crap_. This girl can sing. Like,  _really_ sing. Emily stares, flabbergasted, as Beca continues on with the verse, smiling ever so slightly at Emily’s expression.  
  
_From nervous touch and getting drunk_ _  
To staying up and waking up with you_  

They lock eyes as the song enters the pre-chorus, and Emily takes it as a cue to jump in with a harmony. But Beca’s singing is so perfect that she doesn’t want to screw it up with her own voice, and she doesn’t exactly know what kind of background vocals she can put on these set of lines. After a nanosecond of hesitation, she settles for a quiet  _oooh_ to match the bass notes of the guitar.

 _Now we're sleeping near the edge_  
_Holding something we don't need_  
_All this delusion in our heads_  
_is gonna bring us to our knees_

Beca shoots her a thumbs-up and Emily almost loses the key by smiling too much. They dive into the chorus, which is much easier for her to harmonize to. She pitches her voice a little lower and harmonizes with Beca on the last word of every phrase save for the word ‘me,’ figuring those lines would sound cleaner with just one singer.  

 _So come on let it go, just let it be_  
_Why don't you be you, and I'll be me?_  
_Everything that's broke, leave it to the breeze_  
_Why don't you be you, and I'll be me?_ _  
And I'll be me_

The guitar riff starts again, and Beca points to Emily. “You next,” she mouths.

Her heart is beating super,  _super_ fast, but she swallows her nerves and closes her eyes, taking the lead on the next verse.

 _From throwing clothes across the floor_  
_To teeth and claws and slamming doors at you_  
_If this is all we're living for_ _  
Why are we doing it, doing it, doing it anymore?_

Beca mimics Emily’s exact harmonies as they flow into the pre-chorus and chorus, and Emily keeps her eyes closed because she knows that if they make eye contact again, she won’t be able to keep the smile out of her voice.

And their harmony sounds  _amazing_ through the headphones.

But then they’re nearing the end of the second chorus and Emily has no idea what Beca wants to do for the bridge, so she looks up in a slight panic to see Beca holding up a finger.  _Wait_ , her eyes tell her, so Emily waits as Beca takes over the bridge.

 _Trying to fit your hand inside of mine_  
_When we know it just don't belong_  
_There's no force on earth_ _  
Could make it feel right, no_

She points to Emily with a nod, indicating she sing the next lines. 

 _Trying to push this problem up the hill_  
_When it's just too heavy to hold_ _  
Think now's the time to let it slide_

Barely restraining a smile, Beca waves her finger between them and mouths, “Together.” 

 _So come on, let it go, just let it be_  
_Why don't you be you, and I'll be me?_  
_Everything that's broke, leave it to the breeze_  
_Let the ashes fall, forget about me_  
_Come on,_   _let it go, just let it be_  
_Why don't you be you, and I'll be me?_  
_And I'll be me_

Unable to contain her happiness any longer, Emily’s face splits into such a wide smile that cheeks ache from the strain. She almost lets out an excited scream but covers her mouth and bounces uncontrollably in her seat instead, barely able to wait for the guitar to stop playing and for Beca to stop the mic from recording.

“ _What?_ ” is the first word that bursts from her mouth as soon as the mic is off. “You can  _sing?_ That was  _amazing!_ You can  _sing!_ ” Emily feels  _drunk_. “Oh, stars, that sounded  _awesome!_ Holy smokes, is this what you  _do_ every day? That was so cool! It felt  _so_ good, holy crap. Wow!”

And Beca’s just smiling serenely at her as she blabbers on with random adjectives, unplugging cables and shutting off the mic and fiddling with her laptop. “Let’s head back to civilization so I can access the airport wifi for this one mixing program I use. I’m guessing you were satisfied with that run?”

“Heck yeah!”

Emily feels breathless from the singing and the recording and Beca’s smile and her quiet laugh and the way she rolls her eyes so endearingly at Emily’s enthusiasm. She skips after the smaller girl as they make their way back to the concourse.

“Where’d you learn to sing backup like that?” Beca asks as they ride up a series of escalators. “That was some spot-on harmonizing.”

“O-oh, thanks. My mom was part of an a capella group in college. My family was forced to watch a ton of videos of her old performances.”

“Sounds like a brutal way to learn.”

“But I learned.”

“Fair,” Beca agrees. “You’ve got the makings of a real singer, dude. You’re definitely gonna go places.”

The proper response is to thank her, but the words get stuck in Emily’s throat while all the heat in her body rushes to her face.  _It’s because she’s a music producer and she complimented you_ , she chides herself,  _and totally not because she’s pretty and nice and you maybe might perhaps sorta have a tiiiiiiny crush on her_.

“Here works,” Beca says, jerking Emily out of her spluttering daydream, and gestures to a relatively empty seating area in front of an unused gate. “Let me just clean up the audio and I’ll send it your way.”

Emily nods wordlessly, unable to tear her eyes away from Beca’s concentrated face. This is what working with a record company is going to be like. This is what hearing a recording of her songs — though this particular one isn’t  _hers_ — is going to sound like. This is how it’s going to feel to have her voice and her singing and her lyrics fiddled with and cleaned up and adjusted and jazzed up.

And thinking about it seriously, Emily kind of doesn’t want anyone but Beca working on her songs.

“All right, that’s probably the cleanest I can get it.” Beca straightens and Emily quickly lowers her eyes so she’s not caught staring like a creep. “Wanna listen?” she asks, handing the headphones back to her.

It.

Sounds.

_Amazing._

Emily can’t stop smiling through the whole song — even though hearing her own voice usually makes her cringe a little — because the harmony between them sounds like  _magic._ There’s the perfect amount of echo to their voices, not too long or distracting, and fits with the slight echo on the guitar. But while their voices together sound  _so_  musically satisfying, Emily feels her heart jump every time Beca sings a part alone.

_Why is she producing music? She should be the one being produced!_

She hands the headphones back to Beca when the song finishes, unsure of what to say. She’d already expressed her amazement when they’d finished recording, and honestly, she feels a bit emotional after hearing the song.

“You like it?” Beca asks tentatively when Emily doesn’t say anything, and she realizes with a shock that this supremely talented girl sounds  _nervous_ to hear her opinion. As if Emily’s going to hate what she put together or something.

“Yeah,” she says, and her voice sounds soft and heartfelt, even to her own ears. “I love it.”

And she shouldn’t overthink the way Beca turns a little pink at her compliment, but she totally does.

“Hey, can I ask you something…kind of weird?” Emily suddenly asks. “It might reopen a wound.”

“Doesn’t sound too tempting to say ‘yes,’ but I guess I will for your sake,” Beca responds with a raised eyebrow. “I’m going to e-mail you the file for the song right now, by the way.”

“Oh, yeah, thanks. Okay, well…um. I know it was a brief and totally unintentional thing you said, but uh.” Emily swallows and risks everything with her next question. “D-did you mean it? W-when you said…um. That you’d prefer a cute songwriter sitting next to you on the plane? W-well, not the ‘preference’ part, but the ‘cute’ part —”

And Emily stops herself there, because if Beca had turned pink at the compliment for the song, she’s now completely red from her neck up. Her mouth opens and closes repeatedly before she buries her face in her hands.

“Oh, my god,” Beca says, her voice muffled by her hands.

“I’m sorry, I was just kind of wonder —”

“Oh, my  _god_.”

“But it’s okay if you don’t to ans —”

“Holy  _shit_.”

“S-sorry.”

“No, holy crap, don’t apologize.” She raises her head and smoothes out her hair, avoiding eye contact with Emily. “Um. Okay. Yeah, I did. Mean it.”

“The ‘cute’ part?”

“The ‘cute’ part, yeah.” Beca agrees, turning even redder. “You’re, like. Fricken adorable, Emily.”

And now it’s Emily’s turn to hide her face in her hands because  _what the heck? What the heck is happening? Oh em gee? What? What if this really is a fever dream? Am I gonna wake up? Do I have to?_

“A-and talented. And an A-plus travel buddy,” Beca adds. “If you don’t stick with Residual, I’d…um. Love to work with you over at DR.”

Emily is internally screaming at this point, just wordlessly shrieking with joy as she stares, open-mouthed, at Beca, who looks incredibly uncomfortable with the amount of embarrassment she’s going through. And a crazy idea springs into Emily’s mind.

“Hey, um. We still have like…three-ish hours left, right?”

“Yeah?” Beca replies, confused by Emily’s sudden smile. She practically flinches when Emily shoots up to her feet.

“Then  _I_ want to take  _you_ on a scavenger hunt.”

“Oh? Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Emily nods. “We’ll go with my original plan. Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue.” She counts off each item on her fingers and wiggles them at Beca.

“Are we getting married or something?” Beca teases, and smirks when Emily falters.

“N-no! I’m just…kind of maybe sort of trying to ask you to go on a date with me.”

Beca raises her eyebrows with surprise. “A date? In O’Hare?” She lets out a low whistle that has Emily’s face burning like it’s on fire. “Didn’t think I had it in you, kiddo. Very bold of you.”   

“Is that a yes or a no?”

Emily beams at Beca’s shy smile. “Yes. Definitely yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title song: Hotels (Tk) - Mr. Carter Davis
> 
> the cover they sing is 100% inspired by this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlhAi9f3_1g
> 
> prompts at: http://moxiemorton.tumblr.com/


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: ...basically a bunch of tumblr messages and ao3 comments about wanting a part 3

They almost miss their flight out of O’Hare.

Which would’ve been  _ super _  embarrassing and damaging to Beca’s self-proclaimed reputation as an experienced traveller, especially since they had five literal hours to make the connecting flight. If Emily hadn’t off-handedly checked the time, Beca’s sure she would’ve forgotten completely about her original trip to L.A.

But by the time they rush through the gate barely two minutes before it closed for good, there are three freshly recorded covers sitting in Beca’s mixing program, waiting to be edited.

“Thank god we did this ahead of time,” Beca pants, her throat burning from all the running they did to get to their gate on time. She waves her new boarding pass, recently changed so her seat is once again next to Emily. “Definitely wouldn’t have remembered if we left it ‘til after the scavenger hunt.”

Emily laughs a little through her own heaving breaths. “Not much of a scavenger hunt,” she comments, gesturing for Beca to enter the plane first. “More like a ‘what song fits into this category’ Google search.”

“Nuances.”

They settle down heavily into their seats, exhausted from running through the airport. The door closes before they’ve even put on their seatbelts, and Beca shivers at the thought that she’d almost missed this flight. She can almost feel Theo’s patronizing glare.

“That was fun, right?” Emily asks, her breathing already back to normal.

“What, recording four covers? Or running a marathon through O’Hare?”

“Both.”

Beca raises an eyebrow. “You and I have very different ideas of ‘fun’ if you enjoyed that sprint.”

“Well, the whole ‘oh em gee we’re gonna miss our flight’ part was scary, but doesn’t it just feel…I dunno,  _ fun? _  To run somewhere you’re not supposed to?” Emily’s smile is infectious as hell, and Beca tries to bite back her own.

“You’re such a kid.”

Emily just pokes out her tongue in response.

_ Ohhhhhh kay. That’s not adorable or anything. Nope. Totally normal. Not cute at all. Be cool, Beca. Be. Fuckin’. Cool. _

A weird choking sound comes from her throat, and Beca mentally punches herself in the face. “Y-you uh. Wanna…listen? To like, what…uh. What we just. Just recorded?” she stumbles frantically. She hopes to god her face doesn’t look as red as it feels, but knowing her luck and Emily’s keen sense for picking up on her embarrassment, it probably doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Beca, we’re about to take off,” Emily says nervously, looking around at the stewardesses.

“Oh, right.” She follows Emily’s gaze and nods. She doesn’t even have her laptop out, so her suggestion makes absolutely no sense. “Forgot about that.”

_ Why are you making a fool of yourself? Why are you nervous? Stop being nervous! _

It’s not like she isn’t trying.

But Emily’s so effortlessly cute and dorky, and Beca’s always been a disaster when it came to any emotion other than anger.

And she’s almost certain that she’s falling  _ hard  _ for Emily.

Beca quietly takes a deep breath and lets out an internal shriek.

_ Just think about something else. Stop thinking about how close you two are sitting. Don’t look at her hand on the armrest. Stop it, Beca, stop thinking about holding it. _

She tears her mind away from Emily and re-focuses it on the songs they’d just recorded.

Following Emily’s theme of Something New, Something Old, they’d kept  _ Let It Go _  for ‘something blue,’ since they both agreed that a sad song would be a best fit for that category. For ‘something old,’ they’d taken one of Beca’s super old mash-ups from her college days — a jam-packed mix of six songs that Emily called ‘wild but under control’ — and stripped away the vocals to leave the instrumentals so they could fill in the parts karaoke-style. ‘Something new,’ was a bit harder, since Beca was still hesitant about using Emily’s songs in case she signed with Residual.

“What if we just…don’t have lyrics, then?” Emily had suggested.

“We don’t really have instruments, though.”

“Yeah, but you have that weird number pad contraption, right? Doesn’t that record and loop things?

“You mean a launchpad?”

“ _ That _ .”

So Beca had pulled up a file of a simple background beat and they’d played around for a while on the launchpad, taking turns recording four-bar riffs and layering them on top of each other. Beca’s done this kind of thing on her own, but the look on Emily’s face when they listen to the final mix makes it feel like a whole new experience.

‘Something borrowed’ was the most adventurous. They’d wandered around the airport, hunting for various sounds they could pick up and record. Having basically lived her childhood weekends in airports, Beca knew where to find certain beats and rhythms, like the steady thumping of the baggage claim belt or the whirl of the machinery at the end of moving walkways.

While compiling and editing all the sounds to make a solid background beat and instrumentals, Beca suggested a song they could match to it. Emily suggested they include gang vocals.

“What, like. Have other people sing it?”

“Like a  _ bunch  _ of other people,” Emily said excitedly.

So despite Beca’s reluctance,  Emily had stood up on a chair in the middle of a crowded waiting area, holding Beca’s portable recorder, and announced that they were recording a cover of  _ Airplanes _ , and that anyone who knew the words should sing the chorus.

Beca had tried to make herself smaller than usual and hide, expecting this plan to go sideways.

Almost everyone sang along.

It  _ had _  to be Emily’s enthusiasm and charm. Beca knows for a fact that if  _ she _  had stood up and asked for everyone to sing a cheesy-ass song, she would’ve been met with general indifference and a bullet to her dignity.

Watching Emily standing on the chair, smiling uncontrollably as she conducted the crowd of confused but energetic strangers to sing a has-been pop hit, Beca was hit by so many emotions that she almost started crying.

Which was like, totally embarrassing, but whatever.

Emily’s short thank-you speech was met with applause and cheers, and when she jumped off the chair and skipped over to her, Beca had the weirdest urge to kiss her, right then and there in the middle a crowded airport.

Which honestly came out of  _ nowhere  _ and had her  _ shook _ .

So yeah, she can’t help that she’s nervous.

Emily’s quiet next to her as the plane finally takes off from the runway, and by the time they’re coasting in the air, the seatbelt sign turning off, she’s dead asleep. Beca smiles, heart practically melting from the sight, as she grabs her laptop from the overhead bin. After a second thought, she also grabs Emily’s jacket from the bin and drapes it over the sleeping girl.

It’s an evening flight and most people are settling down to sleep, pulling down window screens and sliding on eye masks. The ceiling lights begin to dim, and Beca lowers the brightness of her screen so it doesn’t blind her.

She puts on her headphones and gets to work.

The vocal-layering one doesn’t need that much editing, but Beca plays it through a couple of times just to hear Emily’s voice. Which is  _ fine _ , she’s not  _ totally in love with her voice _  or anything. Their karaoke cover of Beca’s old-ass mashup needs a lot of piecing together, especially since there are so many songs going on at once and they’d recorded each one separately.

Their cover of  _ Airplanes _  has Beca smiling through the entire mixing process. She cleans up the background rhythms before moving onto the vocals, and while the gang vocals of all the strangers are entertaining in itself, it’s nothing compared to her and Emily’s rapping.

Or rather, attempt at rapping.

They had giggled through the entire process, stopping way too often to get a proper recording. Even now, listening to their final take, Beca can hear the smile in Emily’s voice as she attempts to mimic B.o.B.’s heartfelt rap.

The drink cart rolls by but Beca doesn’t want to wake Emily, so she gets a ginger ale for herself and a water bottle in case Emily’s thirsty when she wakes up. The ceiling lights turn completely off as soon as they finish serving drinks, and Beca sets her screen to the dimmest setting she can.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Emily nodding off heavily to the side, waking up just enough to pull herself upright again before falling back asleep. Beca watches her repeat the process a few more times, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, until Emily comes dangerously close to smashing her head into the window.

“Oh, holy shit,” Beca whispers, but Emily catches herself before her head collides with the screen. Gently, so she doesn’t startle the sleeping girl, Beca pulls at Emily’s shirtsleeve until she’s tilting towards her and not the wall.

_ Might as well just put her head on your shoulder, Beca. _

She doesn’t really know if she should, if it’s something Emily would be comfortable with. But now that Emily’s facing this way and leaning close —  _ too _  close — to her, Beca can’t stop staring. She can practically count her eyelashes and feel her even breaths, her lips slightly parted and moving just a little as if she’s speaking in her dream.

Beca freezes in place, less than an inch away from Emily’s face. She flinches back immediately, blinking hard, wondering what in the  _ hell _  she was about to do. Without another thought, she gently pulls Emily’s head onto her shoulder, turns back to her laptop, and refuses to look away from her screen for the next few hours. She doesn’t even dare move anything but her fingers, afraid of jostling Emily and waking her.

_ Was I really about to… _

No, nope. Not going there.

With determined concentration, Beca blows through their covers within the hour and cleans them up even without the online editing tool that she sometimes used. Desperate for more distractions, she pulls up her clients’ files even though she rarely ever touched them outside of the studio.

When Emily finally stirs awake, Beca’s eyes and ears are screaming for a break.

“Oh, my lord.” Emily jerks awake and sits up. “I’m so sorry. Whoa, jeez, I’m  _ so  _ sorry, that was totally not cool of me.”

“It’s fine,” Beca says. She tries to act casual, like she wasn’t the one who’d put Emily’s head on her shoulder, like she wasn’t about to kiss Emily while she slept, like she was just a cool and collected music producer working on her clients’ projects.

“Uh. Um. Thanks,” Emily says, patting Beca’s shoulder awkwardly.

“We’re landing in about thirty minutes,” Beca says, handing her the water bottle and trying to diffuse the weird air between them.

“Oh.” She rubs the sleep from her eyes. “I was asleep for that long?”

“We had a pretty long and eventful day,” Beca shrugs.

“But  _ you’re  _ awake.”

“I never sleep.” Emily laughs at that, and Beca lets go of the tension in her shoulders. “Wanna hear?” she asks, offering her headphones to Emily.

Beca plugs in a splitter and pulls out her janky little earbuds, watching Emily put on her studio headphones to make sure she’s ready. At her thumbs-up, Beca hits play.

Emily smiles as the first song, Beca’s old-as-hell mashup, begins to play, nodding her head to the beat and giving Beca an elated smile. But then her expression shifts when the mashup slowly fades to their cover of  _ Airplanes _ . Beca raises her eyebrows in amusement as Emily’s eyes widen, looking absolutely shocked and amazed at the seamless transition. Even though she’d probably picked up on it, she looks uncontrollably excited every time one song ends and the next starts without a break in between.

“Whoa! You mashed them all together!” she exclaims in hushed excitement as soon as the final song, their first cover of  _ Let It Go _ , ends. “That’s so cool!”

“Thought it’d be a little more fun than just having four separate songs.”

Emily beams. “ _ Now _  we have similar ideas of ‘fun.’”

She hands back the headphones, her hand brushing briefly against Beca’s. Pretending like her heart didn’t just jump up to her throat, Beca wraps the headphones back around her neck. “I sent this over to the same e-mail as before, if that’s cool,” she tells Emily. “I also sent you them as four separate files, in case you want to throw them in your portfolio for future use.”

Emily doesn’t say anything in response. She’s staring out the window at the pitch black sky, lost in thought. Beca can see her pensive expression in the reflection, and she hesitates before touching her shoulder.

“Emily.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. That’s great, thank you.”

“You okay?”

Instead of answering, Emily just closes her eyes and leans back in her seat. Sensing that she’s looking for the right words to say, Beca waits patiently for her to speak.

When she finally does, it’s so quiet that Beca barely hears it over the roar of the plane.

“I don’t want this day to end.”

It technically has, since it’s almost 11pm, but she knows what Emily means.

“Doesn’t have to,” Beca says. “We could, you know. Do this officially. With a contract and everything.”

Emily nods, but there’s still a tinge of sadness in her eyes. “That…would be pretty cool. But I kinda meant, like…” She glances at Beca. “Look, I don’t know about you, but today felt like one huge date. A  _ fantastic _  date. One of the best I’ve ever been on. And I don’t ever want it to end.”

_ Shit. Shit, Beca, you’re in  _ deep _ , aren’t you? _

There’s no point denying it now. It’s been a wild 12 hours, and it’s about time she accepts that she’s fallen hard for Emily Junk.

She thinks hard about her next words, knowing that they could very well change her life forever.

“Well, uh. It doesn’t…have to,” she repeats. “Residual’s only a few stops away from me on the metro, so um. If you  _ want _ . We could grab dinner or something tomorrow.” Beca swallows nervously. “If that’s…if that’s something you’d like.”

Emily gives her a look that has the whole world melting away. “Yeah,” she says quietly, smiling softly, “I’d like that very much.”

Beca can’t look away. Emily looks positively radiant even through the darkness, her smile a perfect pull of her lips. All she wants to do is kiss that beautiful smile, kiss it until she loses herself in everything that’s Emily. She’s never wanted — no,  _ needed _  — something as badly as she needs Emily’s lips on hers right now.

Emily’s eyes trail down to her lips, and that’s all the confirmation Beca needs before she leans in, slowly closing the distance between them. They trade a look, a brief but assuring one that simultaneously asks  _ is this okay?  _ and answers  _ absolutely _ . And then her eyes are fluttering closed, and she can feel Emily’s breath on her lips —

— when the ceiling lights flicker on and the intercom crackles to life, the pilot’s voice suddenly booming over the speakers.

Yanked back to reality, they jump apart, eyes wide and blinking in the sudden, harsh lighting.   
  
“Gooooood evening, folks, this is your captain speaking. We’re about fifteen minutes out from LAX and we’ll be beginning our descent shortly. If you could please refrain from —”

Beca tunes out the rest of the announcement, her heart thundering in her ears. She was so close.  _ They _  were so close. The sensation of the phantom kiss lingers on her lips, and Beca can’t help but to bite down to make the feeling go away.

Emily stays quiet until the announcement is over, after which she smiles nervously. “I’m gonna, uh. Go to the bathroom before that thing goes on,” she says, pointing at the seatbelt sign.

“Oh. Y-yeah, sure.” Beca moves to get up from her seat, but Emily stops her with a hand to her shoulder.

“No, no. It’s okay. You’re small enough to squeeze past.”

Beca’s scoff breaks the tension.

She swats at Emily’s arm before tucking in her legs to give her space, and Emily roughly ruffles Beca’s hair in retaliation as she passes. But she hesitates before she fully steps out into the aisle, and Beca’s just starting to wonder what the hell she’s doing when Emily suddenly leans down and places a quick kiss on her cheek.

“I’ll be right back.” She tells a stunned Beca, blushing a little.

Beca watches in shocked silence as Emily hurries down the aisle, wondering from what heaven this literal fricken angel decided to fall from and ruin her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title song: Hotels (Tk) - Mr. Carter Davis
> 
> yell at me: http://moxiemorton.tumblr.com/


End file.
